Dirk Nowitzki Aims to Play Again in Mid-December

Dallas Mavericks superstar forward Dirk Nowitzki continues to be frustrated with the slow pace of recovery from recent knee surgery, and is now projecting that he will suit up again in mid-December. Looking ahead, Dirk also says that he can envision himself playing in the NBA until 2016. Per the Dallas Morning News: “Well, unfortunately not as soon as we all hoped, I think,’ Nowitzki said when asked when he might return to the court. ‘I think originally when the last statement we put out was it’s going to take six weeks before I do any basketball activity. Unfortunately, I tried, but I couldn’t cut the time down.’ Nowitzki hit some rough spells in the last two weeks and only started upgrading his workout regimen on Monday. It’s been one month and one day since he had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. ‘Saying all that, I think I’m still about two weeks out before even getting on the court and start working out, start running, start shooting,’ he said. ‘That would put me right at six weeks before I get on the court. By that point, I’m assuming I need a good week or two to get in halfway decent playing shape running and shooting and doing all sorts of stuff. I was obviously hoping to cut that time a lot shorter. It’s been a frustrating time for me, especially watching and nothing I can really do. So there’s been some hard days, some frustrating days. But I think now it’s gotten better this last week or so and now I guess I’m seeing the end of the tunnel. But there were some frustrating times at the beginning.’ Asked if it was going to be mid-December before fans could expect to see him in uniform, Nowitzki said: ‘Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping. It’s tough to really say how long it’s going to take until I get back. From the beginning, the goal is that the swelling has to be gone 100 percent and the strength has to be back 100 percent. And once that goal is reached, then I can obviously think about playing again. But I think we’re still far away from that. I guess after every surgery you have some ups and downs. You have some good days and you do a little more and you have a couple bad days. And there were tons of bad days there a couple weeks ago. But it’s getting better and that’s why we increased the workload starting yesterday. I guess you guys reported that already as I was doing a little elliptical and get a little strength back and do a little leg press on that leg and do everything I can to hopefully be back on the court back soon.’”